


Melting Magnets

by taedragon (orphan_account)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Comedy, M/M, Romance, actually dont, cliche fic pls forgive me, nct 127
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 23:26:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7409377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/taedragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pretty long after Yuta realised that he and his best friend, Lee Taeyong were crush rivals for winning the same guy’s heart, he figured that this enmity had made him lose something that was much more important.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Melting Magnets

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully this won’t seem as cliché when read? I hope you readers like this!

Taeil squints at the NCT Journal headlines, not just his eyes, his whole face seems to have shrunken to magnify and re-analyse exactly _what_ the piece of bullshit currently etched on his monitor is. The words seem foreign and leave a skunky taste in his mouth as he recites them, synchronised with his eyes mapping over.

This is not the first time Johnny has gone to the insane lengths of posting incredulous things on the university blog, yet it leaves Taeil feeling as surprised as the time he’d seen the picture of _a dog in the Persian maharaja outfit_ sitting as the website header and Johnny’s excuse for it was that Jake Gyllenhaall did look a bit like a hyper excited Lhasa apso.

Taeil is infuriated, he probably thinks if he tries to beat Johnny’s face into pulp and sculpt it into the face of the same open mouthed and boinked Lhasa apso, he might certainly be able too, in this state of rage.

 

 

 

In the quiet and peaceful library hall,  the librarian Kim Jongin–ssi is snoring in polyrhythm and some freshman kids are beatboxing to it. In the corner by the social anthropology section, a five metres distance to the left, Suh Johnny has just finished posting the update for the university’s blog.

He feels rather proud, hoping that today’s post would definitely accelerate the amount of bravos ( _likes_ have been customized into _bravos_ by Johnny; pun intended) that the blog receives. Apparently Headmaster Byun thought it’d be a good idea to let the student body handle crucial things such as _the official university blog_ on which the university’s national and international reputation depends on. Maybe that tells you a lot about the headmaster’s intellect.

Johnny’s content, lopsided smile sees no onset of the storm that Moon Taeil’s phonecall is bringing. Oblivious as already stated, Johnny picks it up.

“Hello?”

“Die bitch,” Taeil growls from the other end and Johnny falls off his chair, ducking to hide from an imaginary gunshot.

Johnny swallows as Taeil enunciates each syllable of his bone chilling commandment with gritting teeth.

 _“Headmaster Byun_ _’s office. NOW._ _”_

 

 

  

Headmaster Byun’s office has been strategically designed to look exactly like Professor Dumbledore’s; he even has a plastic phoenix that breathes fire on pressing a button. The best thing headmaster Byun had ever done with it was to burn Vice Principal Soojung’s hair such that she had to sport a matching pixie with Amber.

The moment Taeil enters with Johnny dragged in by a pinched ear, the headmaster beams and strokes his fake moustache. _Atrocious,_ Taeil thinks.

“Sir, with all due respect, that moustache is disgusting,” Taeil says, straightening his suit jacket and standing authoritatively, having let go of Johnny’s ear.

“Nonsense I look like posh Allen Poe. And why have you brought him Taeil? You said I had put the right guy on the job! This is a surprise!” Byun marvels.

“If you remember correctly, I said you were putting the wronger guy on the job. The wrongest. Most wrong– _whatever._ _”_

The headmaster’s office is not one devoid of the classic pregnant silence. Johnny tries to keep his whines down; Taeil really pinched his ear damn bad.

“What is your complaint?” the headmaster says with a disinterested gesture of his hand, “This boy is good enough to survive the green fields so I have no other punishment to offer. How ‘bout you just let him go?”

“He’s making the school blog look like a love showdown!” Taeil shouts, his perfectly styled brown hair falling out of place. _Static,_ Johnny wonders.

“Oh is it so?” the headmaster says, suddenly piqued. Taeil next noise is quite disgruntled, because the headmaster looks more interested than repulsed at the statement.

_Is it too late too apply as a teacher at another university?_

“Please don’t throw me in the green fields,” Johnny pleads, getting up from the floor, with a hand wrapped around his red ear.

“Shush boy. None of that. What _love showdown_ is this that we’re talking about?”

“Uh...Lee TaeYong from the theatre club and Nakamoto Yuta are fighting over Ten from the dance club? It’s on your screen sir–”

“Right right, well they’re good friends I bet it’s feisty,” The headmaster concludes, winking not so surreptiously at Johnny.

 _“Ooh_ you bet it is,” Johnny continues, the glint in his eye mirroring the headmaster’s while Taeil stares in awe.

“Sir! You can’t possibly _allow_ fickle love stories to be entered on the university blog!”

“Love stories aren’t fickle Taeil,” the headmaster cuts in, making a quack hand sign and shutting Taeil up successfully.

“Yeah but I’m sure no one wants to know about this relationship–this post is really unnecessary.”

“What’s unnecessary is that _you_ _’re_ making a giant whale out of this. If Mr Suh wants to tell the world about a love story then we must all partake in the joy!”

It's one of those moments when Taeil wonders how this guy passed for one of the most intelligent people in the nation.

“WHAT. THE. ROTATING. FUCK.”

“Fantastic language, coming from a senior lecturer.”

 

 

 

Even though the headmaster had spared Johnny, Taeil felt more or less obligated to kick his arse and send it flying a la team rocket to the green fields.

Freshman don’t get why the green fields are a punishment ground when it looks like a perfectly peaceful meadow with yellow butterflies hovering over the pastures. But that’s the _nice_ part. The _punishment_ part of the field is that it’s so comfortable students tend to fall asleep on the grass, and if one does fall asleep on the grass, they’d be graced with a stomp on the face by a hefty Australian cow.

Moo.

Taeil’s current state of anger is more inclined towards the fact that recently, he’s been seeing Yuta slack off.

Yuta’s always been distant, he’s one of those students who don’t prefer to keep anything going in their lives besides work. Taeil has noticed Yuta doesn’t hang out with his friends unless Doyoung and Johnny bribe him with free takoyaki. He has always been, in a way, disconnected.

But these days, it’s taking an unusual turn.

Yuta can’t kick a soccer ball to the side of the field with as much force as he used to, he’s missing classes and if he _is_ spotted in a class, it’s usually one where he isn’t supposed to be or he’s asleep in the back seat.

 _Johnny probably shouldn_ _’t put his fight with TaeYong in the spotlight when Yuta seems abnormally too affected by it,_ Taeil deduces.

Taeil’s been a senior lecturer for a while and he’s never seen a kid become so [disconnected], it’s like he’s astral projecting while walking.

Worried, Taeil confronts him after kicking Johnny in the green fields and ignoring his yap of pleas to let him go.

“Yuta,” Taeil says, giving him a pat on the shoulder when he catches the student in the hallway one morning. Yuta looks up, like fifty percent looks up, because he looks so weary his body isn’t even performing full functions.

“Morning teacher,” Yuta mumbles and speeds up his walk to leave Taeil behind. Taeil staggers forward, stopping him with a firmer hand on the shoulder.

“Are you alright, Yuta?” he asks but then Yuta makes a does-this-face-look-alright-to-you expression and Taeil bites his tongue, “Wrong question. I uh, we should talk.” Taeil is the youngest staff the school has and he's also been friends with Johnny since Johnny lost his pet iguana in Taeil's garden—he's on semi-formal terms with most of his students.

“What do you have to talk to me about?” Yuta says, unemotionally because he can’t really afford to waste energy on emotions.

“I suspect you’ve contracted this virus and it’s draining the life out of you,” Taeil says in a frugal attempt at humour. It’s a sad attempt at being as nerdy as Yuta.

“That’d be a parasite. And it’s called depression, teacher,” Yuta answers flatly and takes a step away, air displacing the shoulder Taeil had put his weight on.

“Do you want to talk to me about it? I’m trying to help,” Taeil beseeches, voice tuning extremely concerned.

“I guess...” Yuta looks down and then looks at Taeil sadly. The teacher almost sniffs. _Oh my child._

“That’d be okay, teacher.”

Yuta’s monotone makes Taeil grow even more worried.

 

 

 

Taeil’s office is ridiculously decorated with a gargantuan poster of Mary J. Blige which he guesses he should remove but then he isn’t tall enough for the job and he sure as hell won’t get Johnny to do it either, pissed as he is at him.

Yuta falls in through the open door right when his classes for the day end, he comes in earlier than expected, Taeil winces at how he slumps on the chair, the wrinkling on his forehead forming a labyrinth already. Taeil gives him cola and a few seconds to relax, since Yuta somehow manages to keep soccer practice scheduled in between classes sometimes.

“How did this all happen?” Taeil asks. Yuta looks pathetic; fighting with his best friend shouldn’t have such a terrible effect on him, should it?

“What are you referring to?”

“The _thing_ over Ten...everything that leads you here finally,” Taeil asks, he wants an answer. He really wants Yuta to take it all out, drop that baggage of emotions but he gives him a comforting look, in case he doesn’t want to say anything.

“You got all night for this teacher?”

“Totally.”

 

 

 

It starts when Yuta is fresh out of the amniotic sac and his parents decide to move to a better place right when he turns three. Methodical is in encoded in their blood so they _do_ move, on Yuta’s fifth birthday, with a house and a new car waiting for them after the flight. Yuta sobs holding his cupcake, and rocks himself to sleep since no one wished him.

Naturally, his attitude towards the new place is bitter.

His dad and mum are engrossed in settling down and the process running slower than a stegosaurus’ brain. Yuta goes to pre-school, yells in frustration at the teacher and constantly feels left out not only at school but also at home.

It’s his sixth birthday when a strange thing happens in that semi-winter-frostbite-humidity season.

He meets TaeYong.

As in, kicks a soccer ball right into his ass.

Following the ass-dilapidating soccer kick, comes Yuta with a chained string of apologies, TaeYong being the first person to tell him it's fine (which is unnatural, Yuta hasn't had a single person who's been apprehensive of his soccer skills in the non-chaotic stage and here was TaeYong picking up the ball and handing it to him like it hadn't just rendered him immobile). Yuta felt a tug of fascination and indebtedness in his heart.

“You’ve got a mean kick,” TaeYong said, trying to stand, “You’re like, professional or something.”

"Can you walk?" Yuta asked, lips quaking in worry because six year old TaeYong was damn scrawny and looked as fragile as a dying leaf.

"Yeah. I can," TaeYong had replied, his gentle hand reaching for Yuta's sweaty ones as he steadied himself. "But not without you."

 

 

 

"That's oddly too romantic for six year olds isn't it? My my kids these days..." Taeil wonders out loud and a vein pops on Yuta's forehead. Since Taeil is a teacher after all, he's willing to shut reprogram his mouth into continuing with the story of 'How I met my best friend' instead of straightaway screaming, "I DO NOT DESCRIBE OUR RELATIONSHIP AS ROMANTIC FUCK OFF"

"Teacher?" Yuta asks politely, breaking Taeil’s attentive reverie of six year olds TaeYong and Yuta making out under My Little Pony rainbows.

"Oh yes. I'm sorry I lost focus. Continue."

 

 

 

Soon enough, TaeYong and Yuta became friends over how TaeYong turned out to be an emotional blackmailer good enough to take that up as a profession, he used the soccer-ball-to-butt incident and puppy eyes in a package deal to Yuta whenever he needed a favour. Well more than favours, he used the incident as an excuse to hang around Yuta.

Which was almost _all the time._

And as the seasons changed, the city became more about the thrilling landscape rather than the ever foreboding fact that Yuta was out of place here. TaeYong made sure to remind him every time, that he meant a lot to him, close as they had grown. He would press his shoulders firmly before bidding goodbye, ruffle his hair, blackmail him into doing things that he knew made Yuta happy inside—Yuta wondered what TaeYong got out of this, but he kept his questions in the quiet.

On Yuta's sixteenth birthday, TaeYong kidnapped him from his window and brought him to _the_ tent. He had camped on the hill a little distance away from the residential block and boy, the view of the night sky was spectacular.

"Yknow I really appreciate this whole Bear Grylls inspired expedition but you really need to get me home before sunrise,” Yuta breathed out as TaeYong dragged him up the hill and they began to settle inside the transparent tent.

"You talk as if you're a vampire; just tell your mum you went jogging."

"And how am I supposed to explain how I got out of the house? The door’s locked from the inside idiot."

"Shush shut up. I'm already disappointed with myself,” TaeYong replied, suddenly going glum.

"Why?" Yuta inquired.

"Johnny called Ten to ask if he was up for a night out on the hill with us but he gave a flat no. I'm sorry."

"It's kinda okay. Ten's not my boyfriend or anything that he has to be here. I barely know him."

"Yuta. Your love for Ten shoots into outer space like 500 terawatt lasers and you're telling me _it's okay?"_

"Well yeah, it is! I mean I haven't confessed or anything to him. We're just on...different pages."

 _"Right._ You're done with your romance novel and he's not even begun with it," TaeYong scoffs at Yuta’s since-middleschool crush.

Yuta sighed and had sunk back into the sleeping bag, trying to stick closer to TaeYong to warm himself. “Someday I'll take Ten to the takoyaki place they have over there,” he pointed to a vague spot at the cityscape below them, “...and then ask him to marry me,” Yuta finished, turning his face to grin excitedly at TaeYong.

TaeYong raised an eyebrow to his scalp, “I must say...your idea of love is very food centric.”

Yuta had giggled and punched him lightly after snaking a fist out of his sleeping bag.  
“What about you TaeYong?” he asked and TaeYong began to think instantly, humming to create an answer.

“The guy I love...I'd just kiss him stupid pinned on any tree. That is, if I ever find him.”

Letting out a comfortable laugh, Yuta asked, “A tree?”

“I think nature enhances romance y’know a lot of romantic movies do rely on the setting being beautiful, so yeah. A tree. Wouldn’t be so bad.”

“Okay... _Lee TaeYong kissing the guy of his dreams after pinning him to a tree._ Interesting enough,” Yuta remarked, clapping his hands. TaeYong smirked.

“Throw in some snow and possibly a river out of somewhere,” TaeYong said, just for added effect. And he liked snow.

“Well your idea of love is so unrealistic,” Yuta replied, rolling his eyes.

“I say that entire BS because romance itself is unrealistic. If all of that tree and snow shit actually _happens_ then I'll believe love is true.”

“I'll hope with you then,” Yuta sighed, and missed how for a brief moment TaeYong had turned to stare at him. “Only ‘cause I'm _your best friend._ Because honestly? The probability of you ending up with someone on a snowy day is least likely. It hasn't snowed in years.”

TaeYong shrugs underneath the sleeping bag, “Well a man can hope.”

“Hit puberty before hoping at least—you’re still inches shorter than me,” Yuta had mocked and to that TaeYong punched him and Yuta laughed, thinking that red ants biting into his thigh and the tent that didn't fit his feet was probably the best and worst birthday experience he could have ever had, and as much as he'd wanted to share it with Ten, whom he was in love with, he was oddly okay with having just TaeYong.

 _TaeYong was the best friend of all best friends,_ he realised as he had closed his eyes under the night sky.

 

 

 

"SO WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO THIS PRECIOUS FRIENDSHIP? ARE YOU INSANE? YOU TWO NEED TO GET BACK IN A BALL PIT AND PLAY DUMMIES!” Taeil shouts and then colours in embarrassment. _I did not sound like a teacher._

"I suppose not–I mean it's not..." Yuta protests, sounding dejected and Taeil morphs to nerved with worry. _Not again, I can't let Yuta be sad because of what his asshole best friends doing to him by being an asshole precisely._

"Go on."

 

 

 

Then came TaeYong's seventeenth birthday. By then, the news about Yuta being hopelessly infatuated with Ten spread like the plague all over town. Not really like the plague though, but in a sense every person Yuta met was annoyed at the unbreakable continuity of his pining.

The old ladies at the bakery would tease him about it if Ten happened to be in the same line as him. Then it was the cashier at the supermarket. And even Rapunzel snoozed off while Yuta kept on talking about Ten to her.

Yuta was too busy mentally dating the imaginary version of Ten that he forgot to see if Ten was actually interested in him. Besides, Yuta's already had an expert propaganda of dealing with things by not dealing with them—he wanted to enjoy this high school crush which he already deemed useless to run after (even though he wanted to).

On TaeYong's seventeenth birthday, Yuta put his entire pennyworth of knowledge of baking (with a LOT of help from Hansol) and made a cake in the shape of a febreeze bottle for TaeYong (Fifth attempt. Don't ask how the previous went). He creeped up the stairs of TaeYong's ridiculously large house moving through the tiny space between bodies wriggling on the dance floor or any surface available (TaeYong had wide and weird friend circles). Yuta experiences have often taught him utterly useless lessons but he did receive a lightning strike that night.

The first mistake he ever made was to not knock on TaeYong's door. The second was to ever have trusted TaeYong enough to believe he'd never do something like this.

It was Ten, on TaeYong's lap, straddling him and wrapped around like a fucking bandage and unmistakably they had been snogging—it hurt Yuta so much to think of it, he couldn't get that heartbreaking night ever out of his mind.

Ten was too busy sucking a mark on TaeYong's neck and TaeYong saw Yuta. But what Yuta saw was there was no sense of guilt in that gaze. It was as if he wasn't looking at his best _friend,_ he was looking at a best _fiend._

Yuta ran out of the house, muttered something to Mrs Lee along the lines of _'I got a stomach ache. M' sorry. Have a good night'_ and didn't look back at that door ever again.

He fed the cake to street dogs that night, seated by the back door of his house, watching as they lapped up the cream in the dark alley while he sobbed, wishing what he'd seen wasn't true. TaeYong was his best friend; he hoped he would explain, maybe things aren't what they seem. Maybe he's still got a shot with Ten.

Maybe.

But then TaeYong never bothered to explain.

Yuta would then often see them together but no hushed whispers arose if they were dating. And every time Ten smiled apprehensively at TaeYong's arm wound on his back, Yuta's blood boiled in jealousy and hatred for his best friend who never spoke to him cordially after the incident.

Asshole supreme.

Needless to say, in a way Yuta was glad he had to see all of that interaction between the two only for a year; he expected none of that shit in college. Hopefully he’d even make new friends.

Both Ten and TaeYong end up in the same university as him, as per karma’s ploy of planned attack to bomb his life.

As it turns out, TaeYong had all of his classes with him. Without so much a glance, they’d walk by each other; leave no room for the seeds of conversation by avoiding talking to anyone mutually known. Yuta still loved Ten, Yuta still assumed TaeYong had already snatched the love of his life from him and was in the bliss of eternal contentment while watching him suffer.

Yuta slowly recoiled to his usual life in uni but then the whole fiasco of seeing TaeYong and Ten together made his mouth taste like bile all over again.

He did bump into TaeYong in the library once, a tsunami of nostalgia almost destroyed all the walls he had built up as he remembered how they used to shit talk vampire fiction for hours in the high school library and there was a brief moment that TaeYong looked him in the eye and Yuta knew exactly what sadness looks like in someone's eyes.

Or loss. Heavy painful loss.

Yuta walked away, leaving TaeYong's mouth open with the words he had prepared to say.

Yuta knew he wasn't a good judge of character, but that didn't mean he was going to make that mistake twice.

 

 

 

"And here am I teacher, brilliant isn't it? I should use this story to make a hit fanfic," Yuta says, bags forming under his eyes and to Taeil, they look teary. Yuta doesn't say anything until he goes over the table and dumped his backpack.

"I hope you won't cut my marks for sleeping on your couch," Yuta says and Taeil gives him a sad smile, petting his hair as Yuta rests his head on Taeil's lap, sobbing a bit.

 _TaeYong needs some serious ass kicking,_ Taeil decided.

 

 

 

“Yuta!”

 Johnny twittered and reached over to the desk Yuta was drooling over, thankfully lectures for the day had finished. Johnny’s tall form casted a darkening shadow over him like in a horror movie, he got up instantly.

Yuta wipes his mouth and then looks at his Deadpool fanart doodled on the back of his anthropology notes _. Ink got smudged. Fuck my life._

"Hey," Yuta says, trying to smile but his eyes close since they're already swelled up. Somewhere in the back he hears TaeYong take in a breath. He doesn't know how he was able distinguish that and chooses to ignore, "Sup?"

"The pictures from the the last year's sports tournament, you look smashing," Johnny says as he smothers the table with photographs (for some reason Johnny is not overly fond of soft copy) and Yuta's eyes glisten as he catches the wonderful shots of himself dripping in sweat.

"You're great—these are amazing Johnny," he says, beaming up at him and then examining the pictures. "Your camera accelerates my good looks to like, ten thousand percent."

Johnny laughs but then Yuta realises he just said ‘ten thousand’ which is saying ‘Ten thousand’ and that means saying the name that brings an entire asteroid raid of nausea to him and so he sulks instantly. The name also brings visions he doesn't want to see.

"That I've been aware of," Johnny says amused, trying to get Yuta off topic and suavely sitting on Yuta's desk to collect the pictures. His eye catches TaeYong glaring from the other end of the classroom but he doesn't care.

Yuta's hurting. Johnny assumes his life’s been shit enough to suspect he's been hurting ever since he was born because Yuta doesn't kid when he says he hasn't had a great relationship with his family, he gets drunk too often just to remove things he doesn't know why he feels, he's always felt like an outsider in no place of belonging literally the single most thing that Yuta ever had in his life that made him happy was TaeYong.

TaeYong meant too much to Yuta and the audacity that he had to betray him like that was mind boggling.

"I'll see these pictures later," Yuta says, taking the stack Johnny hands him to his pockets.

Johnny returns Yuta's tired smile with a brighter one. "I want them back by evening. With a cup of coffee, of course."

"Sure thing. It's a date," Yuta jokes and there's an odd shift in temperature that makes the room warmer.

Yuta may not realise but Johnny smirked, knowing that it was only TaeYong flaming in jealousy.

 

 

 

Yuta tries not sleeping in the library. With tumblr and YouTube overused and the last fifteen minutes spent in using up the uni’s WiFi to update all his unnecessary shitload of apps, he’s not left with much option for entertainment except looking around for a cute guy. Then he remembers Johnny giving him all those pictures that he hadn’t yet seen.

Yuta pulls them out and is surprised that most are pictures from high school days, some from middle school and _oh gosh that_ _’s from when Hansol had a beard coming I remember!_  Yuta giggles at the memory and then proceeds shuffling through the stack leisurely, but one picture catches his eye.

It’s a picture of TaeYong and him. _Old, I don_ _’t recall anyone clicking this?_ In the photograph, TaeYong has him pushed to the carpet, Yuta remembers it’s from that time he had refused to give TaeYong his manga and TaeYong resolved that teaching Yuta a lesson meant tickling him past the point of suffocation.

It’s a simple moment, a plain picture, but Yuta spends long looking at it. That look of happiness on his and TaeYong’s faces was like a masterpiece, utterly beautiful but tragically something whose glory could never be recreated.

Yuta flips the picture over and flattens his palm over; he could make a coarse paper plane out of it or anything with it so that he stops looking at how happy they used to be- _he_ used to be. But on the backside of that picture is something written in Johnny’s handwriting.

_‘Your love is one in a million_

_You couldn't buy it any price_

_But of the 9.999 hundred thousand other loves,_

_Statistically some of them would be equally nice._ _’_

Yuta concerns about the mental well being of his friend for a long while before calling him. Johnny picks up instantly because he’s always on his phone.

"What shit are you playing?” Yuta accuses, interrupting Johnny’s chirp of ‘Hallo?’

Johnny denies from the other end, “Nothing! I'm not—did you see the message?"

"Yeah I did. Even though it's English, I’m afraid I don’t get it, Johnny."

He can hear Johnny facepalm from the other end. "It means...look acknowledging that I _do know_ about your intense infatuation with Ten n’ all."

"True love," Yuta corrects.

"Nope. Still _infatuation_ with Ten but you should, in my very expert opinion, give _TaeYong_ a chance."

“Here I was thinking you’re into me but nope. Your vouching for Lee fucking TaeYong,” Yuta flails his hand as if Johnny could see him, "I'm _not_ forgiving that asshole!"

"Y’know you have to do it. You’ll feel better. In simple terms."

"Forgiveness does not make people feel better,” Yuta argues. “Especially not me."

Now he hears Johnny groan.

"Yuta _don't you see?_ He's been lurking around you—hell I _bet_ he's even outside the library right now, waiting for you."

"I don't understand what he'd want with me. I don't wanna speak to him."

"Don't pretend like you have an adamantium skull and as if everything I'm trying to say isn't going through to that brain of yours because of it,” Johnny tells him in a warning tone.

Yuta lets his head fall in tiredness, "I'm hanging up."

"Y’know all those flowers I kept bringing to your room when you got the pox last year, those were from TaeYong. And the gourmet chocolates too, I used to think he was divine because he _made_ those. You know what you do to guys who make heavenly chocolates like that? You _forgive them."_

Yuta bites his lips. That’s new information for him, but he can’t help but feel a reminiscent of the gut feeling he had when Johnny used to drop by every single day of the month with flowers. He thought Johnny was just being sweet but turns out, TaeYong was the one sending them.  And those chocolates were a luxury, Yuta would never even dream of getting them. Yuta remembered that when he was bedridden, he would always see TaeYong get onto his shining blue bicycle from his window in the morning.

Somehow, now that Johnny tells him it was TaeYong who bothered to care so much even though they weren’t friends; Yuta feels the tightness in his chest dissipate, _I knew it was him._

He would always want TaeYong to come upstairs to at least say a word to him but given the circumstances, it was hazardous.

"He was there for your grandma's funeral too. Even though you practically hate him, he's trying his best to reach you Yuta, don't you see there’s a prospect of fixing this—"

"Well I wasn’t the one who asked him to try." Yuta says coldly and hangs up.

 

 

 

Yuta has the misfortune to have TaeYong following him like a Neutrophil stalking a fresh piece of bacterium to eat the next day. TaeYong simply follows him and refuses to back away or reduce the two metre distance he was keeping persistent between them all the while. Yuta feels abnormally attacked. Clearly, TaeYong would not stop following him until he’d made his notion heard.

Yuta stops walking once TaeYong stops being the trash car to Yuta’s tow truck. "Y’know you and me..." TaeYong talks behind Yuta while he walks in the long hallway.

 _No, I most certainly don_ _’t wanna know about you and me_ , Yuta thinks and then begins walking again, trying to get as far as possible from him. But his ex-best friend is catching on fast this time, making the tightness and simply that pain in his chest concentrate beyond saturation.

"I don't want to speak to you," Yuta snares, throwing a sour look and aiming his palm to push the glass door to the library. He turns back to give TaeYong a glare only to find that he’s already standing so close that he can hear him grit his teeth.

"Y’know I was being unfair,” TaeYong says nonchalantly, no trace of sincerity in that tongue, “You deserve an equal chance with Ten."

Some people hold anger well, Yuta hopes to believe he’s one of those people but it’s been years trying to bottle up his wrath and label it saintly.

 _I_ _’ve had enough of this shit._ Yuta turns back and slaps him, his anger warrants a powerful strike and he expects TaeYong to reciprocate with a harder slap but there isn't a trace of anger on his ex-best friend’s (alias: _douchebag_ ) face.

Just plain _nothingness._

Yuta stares at him, he wishes he had spikes for glares, he wishes TaeYong _knew precisely_ how mad he was.

"I've been in love with Ten for years. I’ve waited for years. Listened to you fake supporting me for years and _what do I get now?_ I get an _asshole_ telling me that I deserve a chance as if he’s obligating me by letting me know that I'm as hopeless as he presumes me to be?"

TaeYong’s shuts his mouth. He looks down and then sourly gives Yuta a killing stare. _No guilt,_ Yuta thinks. _He isn_ _’t the guy I used to know at all._

"Yes," TaeYong says blankly. "Are you...referring to _me_ as the asshole? Just so we're clear."

Yuta narrows his eyes, he’s astounded. "What else have you ever been to me?"

"Your friend,” TaeYong answers but this time Yuta’s heart springs due to something else entirely. As much as he’s hoping TaeYong has come to him to apologise, he knows he’ll be shaming the cortex his parents gifted him with if he believed TaeYong and forgave him.

“Yeah. Right. _Friend._ Can you even spell it right? Cuz I’m pretty sure you learnt that word recently,” Yuta bites back and TaeYong visibly winces. Yuta takes it as his cue to get out of his eyes. He turns back but TaeYong reprimands. “I-I didn't sleep with Ten that night.”

A boulder flips in Yuta’s stomach. “I didn’t ask you the details.”

TaeYong opens and shuts his mouth, he’s sweating and his eyes look pleading. “The whole school wanted us to date but I never did, Yuta. I never did.”

“Well, why are you telling me all of that? Why didn’t you? You should’ve just jumped on the opportunity!”

“Yuta I’m-” begins the apology from TaeYong’s mouth but Yuta dryly laughs with no humour, only thick sarcasm. Such a pained one that it derails TaeYong from the apologetic monologue he’d planned to say.

“You expect me to believe that? You didn't even tell me the next day! Or any day!"

“You wouldn't believe me if I had told you! You don’t even believe me now!”

Yuta's dilated pupils reclaim. _Deep breaths,_ he tells himself, trying to follow.

_Deep breaths._

But his heartbeat runs haywire once TaeYong swipes a hand through his white hair, looking at him in a way that he feels electrocuted.

"I tried...not to hurt you...” TaeYong tells him carefully and Yuta somehow _believes_ this little thing, because TaeYong’s voice cracks in such a way that couldn’t have been pretence.

But that doesn’t mean it’s food for forgiveness.

"You did it wrong. You don't know the pain of loving someone. I'm not a heartless asshole who makes out with his supposedly _friend_ _’s_ long time love and then shows up—"

"You-you don't really care about how _I feel,_ right?"

"You're right I don't." Yuta snaps but then he notices TaeYong is standing speechless, weird really. Yuta scoffs with a roll of his eyes. “What did you even come here for? I suspect you're only talking ‘cause you wanted someone to fight with.”

TaeYong looks up, his eyes unmistakably teary and simply shooting beams of longing from themselves, “Ten wanted to meet you. Saturday night, in the library. I just wanted to convey a message.”

Yuta’s throat runs dry once TaeYong smiles at him weakly. He didn’t hear what he just said, preoccupied in the sight of his best friend of all those years coming in front of him, exploding in fireworks. Yuta’s seeing something different, he feels light headed but it’s as if all the weight is running to his chest as he holds his breath.

He stands still as TaeYong walks metres away, his legs have forgotten walking, his mind has lost cache of what he was going to do before TaeYong came and shook him up.

TaeYong stops and turns back, “One more thing Yuta,” he says with a second frail smile. Yuta sees the tear tracks shine in the evening skyglow.

“I miss you,” TaeYong tells him before disappearing from the hall. Yuta slaps his own face with two hands once he’s out of sight.

_Stole the words right off my lips._

_Asshole._

 

 

 

“So kids,” Taeil raps his hard file on the table before addressing his students. He doesn’t bother about Jaehyun and Doyoung making out behind the last rows even though it is very cringe worthy. “Before I begin to impart my knowledge to you students, I have something to notify about. And uh...any questions regarding yesterday’s lecture?”

A lanky student raises his arm. “Yes please,” Taeil answers.

“Why is there a giant naked plastic tree in the main hall?” he asks and the question is not even amusing because Taeil had paraphrased the new instalment for Christmas exactly like that. Giant naked plastic tree. It was a fitting name.

“That _is_ what I wanted to tell you about...” Taeil’s gaze runs over from Yuta doodling something on his notebook and then to TaeYong who gets startled out of how he was engaged in staring at Yuta.

 _Idiots,_ Taeil thinks.

“You will be required to write your Christmas wish to Santa on a piece of paper and send it to me so that I may check if you didn’t draw a penis on the paper instead of what i instructed you to,” he announces. He can see TaeYong’s eyebrows climb up his forehead. “Those wishes will be put up on the said giant naked plastic tree as decorative items.”

“And if you are unable to do so by Saturday evening, which is Christmas day of course, consider yourself a rotting carcass because I will hunt you down.”

The class do not let so much a sound of breathing.

Taeil smiles, evilly. “Class dismissed.”

The students get up and roar, “WHAT?”

“It’s Christmas. Go party,” Taeil tells them and hollering erupts, some kids begin to run towards him in a stupendous way just to get a hug. He sees kids wishing each other but he also notices that TaeYong is just staring at Yuta as the younger picks up his things and curses under his breath about how coming to class had been a waste.

Taeil notices how TaeYong drums his fingers against the denim pockets and there is unbelievable patience and longing in that gaze. Like he could wait forever for Yuta to notice him and even if he’d just get a peek, he’d be content with it.

Taeil facepalms.

_Complete idiots._

 

 

 

Yuta bumps into Ten after class. Ten smiles, it’s a very bright, luminous smile; perfection really but Yuta’s mind is elsewhere, envisioning how things would have been had he knocked on TaeYong’s door that night. But that wouldn’t change the fact that he had the guts to sleep with his long time crush but Yuta’s heart is making excuses for TaeYong and-

“Hi,” Ten says but Yuta doesn’t snap out of that look in TaeYong’s hard eyes when they’d argued earlier until Ten waves a hand in front of his face.

Yuta returns the smile mechanically, “Hey.” He raises and eyebrow at Ten and he just feels a pit darken in him because either it must be the fact that he’s old and not thirteen like when he used to be madly in love with Ten. He’s dreamt of a conversation like this, but it doesn’t match up to expectations of the past.

He feels sick.

It’s like the oxygen around him is disappearing, rendering him pukish as Ten looks sideways, “I wanted to—”

“To meet me in the library on Saturday. I came to know,” Yuta finishes his sentence. Someday he used to think finishing each other’s sentences would be endearing but he just feels this urgency to get _away_ that he’s doing it, because it is irritating.

“Yeah,” Ten smiles. Yuta returns it again, internally he’s gawking at himself at the disbelief at how he’s purposely blowing the one chance he has with him.

“I guess, I uh...I’ll see you around?” Yuta says against his wish.

_But it used to be my wish. Why am I not acting okay?_

To this he receives a blinding smile. Ten swaps numbers with him and there’s a text with a rabbit emoji waiting for him once he gets to his room. It takes away a bit of the loneliness.

Ten turns out to be very talkative and humorous, he agrees with Yuta on every single thing, is a major support bomb and Yuta is enjoying the conversation thoroughly when a text pops up.

 **Dickface Assignment Partner** (Taeyong): _I hope you_ _’re happy._

 _That_ makes Yuta snap out of his train of texting and boards him onto the thinking express.

He’s talking to Ten, whom he likes a lot. But he wouldn’t say he’s in love with him because Ten now is not the same from middle school. He’s different, different being the inflection that Yuta’s heart does not flutter, Yuta’s head no longer fantasises. Yuta has a kickass mentor in the form of Moon Taeil, besides this. And he has Johnny, his teddy bear of support, Jaehyun, his favourite person because he cooks for free and many other friends who’ve been there for him, never backing away. All parameters placed, he should be happy.

But something is missing.

Yuta types back.

 _I_  ' _m not happy_

He calls Ten, they exhaust the night listing reasons why X-Men would rule the Avengers. They talk long and till Yuta's on the verge of wanting to sleep since Ten never runs out of things to chat about, he assumes.

It's going just as he'd wanted it to. Ten and he finally becoming _friends_ which was the predecessor of being _more_ later.

Yuta closes his eyes for sleep after admitting to himself that he can try to be less miserable now, stop the age old routine of pondering and hoping, he’s finally talking to Ten. He bites his lips, looking at the pictures of his friends and family on the adjacent wall. He should be happy, he deserves to be but he has to admit,

_Someone is missing._

 

 

 

“This is _the_ worst celebration we hold on Christmas,” Kun complains as all the university folk are told off to go and take their seats in the auditorium.

“Couldn’t agree more,” Yuta apprehends as he looks around for ways to escape the boring ceremony and performances. Kun scoffs and compels Yuta to take another route, just so that it might take long.

“I heard theatre club's doing The Beauty and the Beast. I mean, what the fuck? We're in university, not in the age of princesses–” Yuta starts ranting in annoyance.

“Belle was not a princess.”

“She is a Disney princess. Fight me.”

“You seem to know an awful lot about that.”

“Shut up Kun! Wait— _where are you taking me?_ _”_

“Backstage,” Kun say and Yuta reflexively turns but then Kun has already grasped him and is hurling him into where all the costumes and buzzing of the theatre club was. Yuta’s cheeks flamed at the thought that TaeYong was a member of the theatre club.

He was not ready to face him for reasons his mind hasn’t programmed yet.

Yuta catches sight of Taeil yelling at his phone, “What do you mean you twisted your ankle Haechan? I’LL MAKE YOU PLAY THE PART WITH A TWISTED ANKLE! GET YOURSELF—”

The Kun pushes Yuta before Taeil as if to say, _did you order this hot piece of ass, teacher?_

Taeil lets out a relieved sigh followed by a satisfied smirk.

“Found a replacement.”

In a few seconds Yuta is coerced in to wearing that terrible white dress with his blue apron which should technically not be a dress but a kitchen apparel of some sorts, he deduces. Not so surprisingly he looks pretty cute (he _is_ cute). The blue and white one sits well on him but the cons of wearing the Belle outfit is that he’s very uncomfortable with most of the theatre club ogling.

Taeil glares at everyone who’s staring and Yuta’s thankful for his straight-outta-hellfire teacher. But he can’t help but complain. “Why don’t you get one of the girls to do this part? This dress is super tight and I don’t know what to do! I’m not in this club!”

“We have exactly three girls in the drama club and they’ve got roles already, you're our only option left, Yuta. Please, I wouldn't have asked you to do this had Haechan not sprained his ankle. All you have to do is keep running away from Jaehyun and then dance with Johnny the beast and then dance with—”

“We’re cutting it short,” Doyoung interrupts. “The yellow gown won’t fit Yuta. We’re ending it right when the beast turns human.” Yuta rejoices inside. _Oh thank God._

“This costume is suffocating,” Johnny complains having sat in a corner with the beast head on. Yuta groans, “Fine. But I’m only doing this because you’re my teacher—why are you doing Beauty and the Beast anyway!?”

“Because if we did anything else nobody would have come to watch the annual show, boring as it already is.”

Yuta’s face drops at how pathetic Johnny looks with a stylus difficulty balanced in his hairy hand. “That’s the Chewbacca costume, isn’t it?”

Doyoung gives a hyper and affirmative nod.

 

 

 

A stage has never been a problem to Yuta. He’s been an active participant in the school choirs before he recognised his love for soccer. He probably feels jittery right now, as Jaehyun is flashing his super build as Gaston (totally in character), only because it’s been a long time since he’s performed in front of people.

He’s oddly enjoying it, watching the songs and lip-syncing go on point and he almost forgets his cue to enter until Taeil pushes him on the stage. Jaehyun makes sure to not make it obvious that Yuta hasn’t practiced with them and proceeds with taking the lead. It’s all very easy after that.

 _Yeah. I can do this. I should be in the Royal Shakespeare theatre fuck I am so good at this,_ Yuta gloats internally after Belle’s told the beast she loves him and this elicits whimpers from the ground. He’s worrying about how he’d stepped on Johnny’s foot earlier while dancing but he should focus once the next scene approaches with dazzling glitter lighting and the lights go out.

The music slows down. The smoke clears. The second TaeYong appears as behind Johnny’s beast costume, Yuta's cursing in swears that haven’t been invented yet.

 _How did I not see that coming? Of course TaeYong is in the theatre club, of course he is an amazing actor, of course he is criminally good looking_ _—stupid stupid so stupid I feel like dumping myself in lava_ _—_

He stops thinking once TaeYong’s eyes chase Yuta's after he realises he’s human. He hugs him and then Yuta’s only left with wishing that look he had on his face was true. Like TaeYong didn’t hate him, like TaeYong never ignored him.

Like nothing had ever changed between them.

TaeYong smiles at him, running both thumbs over Yuta’s cheeks. He retorts with a grin, he does feel happy even though it is only an act.

Yuta’s face lights up like a new star born out of darkness and he understands what the world is trying to say to him.

TaeYong inches closer than he could possibly be, eyes glassy and his expression hard to read for a second.

Yuta purses his lips. _I can never be happy unless I see you be the same, if not with me._

The audience gasp and Jaehyun elbows Doyoung to stop and look from the sidebars. Yuta reaches up to run his palm over TaeYong's cheek, momentarily forgetting the script he had hastily read or the last minute directions.

"You saved me," TaeYong says and there's so much real emotion— _Oh God he's perfect,_ Yuta finds himself drawn closer.

And then Yuta's being flung forward, lips colliding with TaeYong's as the audience applauses and he gets it. He gets that he should return the kiss not just because his body is craving it, not just because he’s crumpling in want—simply _magnetised_ even more towards TaeYong, but also since it is at the end, _a show._ The play should end with a kiss. Customary romance trope. Completely fine.

But what’s not fine is the crux, the curtains come down to the deafening sounds of applause, the theatre club begins removing plugging but TaeYong and he are in another world of sorts, indifferent to anything but each other. Dim scarlet colour envelopes them but TaeYong's lips don't leave Yuta's, he kisses him desperately, relatching with more fervour after every time they pull apart for air and Yuta is mad—he's angry that he's letting himself get kissed by TaeYong like this, he's mad that he seems so vulnerable, so incapable of pushing TaeYong away.

But he stands there, hands knotted in TaeYong's hair, mind lost in the insanity and desire that TaeYong's lips are triggering in new ways, arms around his neck, nails digging into his cape—heart racing with love.

He lets TaeYong kiss him. Again and again.

He just does.

TaeYong doesn’t push his tongue in, only licking on the seam of Yuta’s lips even though Yuta opens his mouth wantonly. He’s too weak for his brain to kick back into work.

They let go after what seems hours of making out, lips slick and both let awkward silence overlap them before someone calls for the stage to be cleared. Yuta runs over his mental portfolio of things he wants to say to TaeYong.

 _Okay good work. We just kissed like we were going to fuck on stage and I still hate you. You look really hot in that cape. I hate you. How could you kiss me like that? I don_ _’t understand_ _—_ but all that comes out from his mouth courtesy of self consciousness (since TaeYong eyes are raking up and down his body), “This dress is so...”

“Ugly,” TaeYong finishes, a mischievous glint like the one Yuta is so familiar with, resurfacing. He can’t control his smile.

“Exactly the word I was looking for,” Yuta replies hoping for a laugh or something from TaeYong that makes him believe things can be fixed.

But TaeYong ruins the moment. “Ten was searching for you...”

“Yeah. Um. I should leave.”

Yuta has never gotten kicked in the stomach but that feeling when TaeYong lets him go most certainly would feel worse than it.

 

 

 

“What’s got you looking like this?” Taeil says, once he spots TaeYong in the lobby connected with the main hall. He’s looking at all the hung up Christmas wishes on the tree, those shiny papers becoming a leaf. After the celebration, the students have left for home except a few, so the whole place is empty, silence looms everywhere.

TaeYong is lost in thoughts. Perhaps a single thought.

“TaeYong, if this is about what happened—”

“I know you threatened to fail me if I ever hurt Yuta again but I—” TaeYong instantly covers his face to compress it so that tears don’t spill out.

Taeil presses his hand on his arm, “Get some rest. And you need to submit your Christmas wish to me. If you don’t, _that_ _’s_ gonna get you failed.”

TaeYong doesn’t smile. _I should really stop with the jokes,_ Taeil thinks.

“You’ve still got him TaeYong,” the teacher tells him reassuringly, trying to brighten him up.

“I lost him a long time back,” he replies and Taeil is interrupted by Jaehyun calling him for something. “I’ll submit it by evening. Thanks teacher,” TaeYong says and heads for his room. Each step feels like he’s growing heavier by the second.

“Is he okay?” Jaehyun asks as Taeil reaches him. “I believe so,” Taeil answers, quite dejectedly himself.

Jaehyun quirks an eyebrow. “Explain why teacher?” There’s good humour in it but it leaves Taeil pissed anyway because of why Johnny thought publicising something like that was not really necessary. Everyone who bothers reading the university boog does know about the fight.

“You saw that climax right?” Taeil questions, walking past Jaehyun and the theatre club member follows, flummoxed.

“Of course, it was spectacular. That kiss looked real,” Jaehyun tells him excitedly.

Taeil faked a smile, a cloud of tiredness raining exhaustion over him, before he continued.

“That kiss, Jaehyun; _wasn_ _’t in script._ _”_

 

 

When Yuta reaches the library, he’s struck in awe because the decoration looks amazing. There’s singling bells everywhere, he’d hate to bump into someone under the ridiculous amount of mistletoes on the upper shelves.

“Yuta,” he hears Ten say.

_No mistletoe. No mistletoe. Please no mistletoe._

“We’re under a mistletoe,” Ten says gleefully and Yuta goes pale, kisses usually aren’t a huge deal to him, he’s practically kissed everyone on campus but then this feels almost like betrayal.

“I’m kidding,” Ten says giggling and Yuta is relieved. He doesn’t understand that he used to crush on Ten really bad in middle school. He just wants to go home and sleep his weariness away.

“What I wanted to ask was...will you go out with me?”

Yuta gulps. It’s the moment he used to dream of. It’s here. Ten is standing before him, they are under _a mistletoe_ for fuck’s sake, but he doesn’t understand why he isn’t making a move, why he isn’t saying yes like he used to think.

Ten is waiting, patiently. The colour disappears from Yuta’s face and maybe it’s obvious on Yuta’s face and Ten is not unobservant. Ten walks away, “I should’ve known.”

Yuta is confused, “What?”

“You’re already taken,” Ten points out, pinning something in the air which Yuta can’t quite understand.

Yuta is still confused, “What?”

“You’re with-wait, you don’t know?”

It’s getting on the tip of Yuta’s patience, “WHAT?”

Ten backs of defensively, smirking, “I guess I can’t tell you then. You’ve got to find out yourself.” And then he runs out of the library, leaving Yuta alone.

Yuta shrugs to no one and presses the spot on his head which was growing a headache. _Whatever the hell was that._

When he gets to the dorm, it’s a different story. He can’t close his eyes without hoping TaeYong would press his lips on his, he can’t look at his hands without revisiting the feeling of running them through TaeYong’s silver hair, it’s like he can’t do anything without being reminded of him.

He turns the radio on.

 _All I want for Christmaaaas is youuuuuuu_ _—_

Yuta switches the radio off aggressively. _I should book a flight home, get away from this shit._

Or he could face it. Like the grown up adult man he was.

He scrolls through his contacts and when he finds Dickface Assignment Partner, he presses call.

And then he waits.

 _Pick up TaeYong._ No response. He calls again before it goes to voicemail. _Pick up so that I can tell you that I..._

TaeYong’s cell phone rings repeatedly in the lobby and with no one in there, it’s only heard by the walls and furniture. TaeYong is walking to Taeil’s office, a slip of paper in his hand, a hole punched at one end. He hands it to Taeil and the teacher looks at the blank paper, sighing, “Still no clue about what you want?”

“I don't want anything, I realised,” TaeYong says. Taeil rolls his eyes and TaeYong is taken aback, he has never seen a teacher behave with such swank. “Yeah right. If ‘anything’ was equivalent to ‘things that are not Yuta’.”

TaeYong blushes and he looks out of the window at the darkening sky. Taeil scoffs and pushes a box towards him. “Why don't you just go over these cards others submitted and write a cliché answer like world domination and stop wasting my time—I have to create the question paper you will cry about.”

“Uh...I ace your subject teacher?”

“Okay whatever. The question paper _others_ will cry about.”

TaeYong takes a seat and scribbles but then strikes it off. The process keeps on going until Taeil snaps, “What're you being so indecisive for?”

“I don’t know, I’ve been feeling weird,” TaeYong admits and Taeil pats his head, taking a seat beside. “And everyone’s written shit like _find love of life_. Gross.”

“Just out of curiosity, if you had a love of your life whom you could call your soul mate or whatever, and you found them, what would you do?”

“Take him to the sixteenth Grey’s street,” TaeYong replies mechanically. The teacher is left nonplussed as TaeYong continues. “Pin him on the tree beside the river and kiss him under the snow—Hey! Don't roll your eyes! I haven't changed that answer since I was sixteen!”

“Really? Snow?” Taeil says, amused, “I know this place used to be hill station but I'm sure you know that it hasn't snowed since ages.”

TaeYong stares judgementally at his teacher. “You really have lived that long am I right?”

Taeil gives him a lightning stare. The younger’s mouth closes in fear. “With reference to the actual situation at hand...If Yuta and you weren't ex-best friends or wouldn't have had that history and the erotic kiss and all the toxic waste between you two...what would you have done?”

TaeYong shivers, “I would've said ‘hey, you're cute, you up for a movie sometime?’”

“Cliché. But I like it. What's stopping you from doing that now?” Taeil tells him but TaeYong still has a dumb face on.

“Erm...all of those things you just said? The toxic waste and everything?”

“Then wish for those things to go away. You never know what might happen,” Taeil says and leaves him alone with the piece of paper and a pen.

After a moment, TaeYong manages to scribble something on the card.

 

 

 

39 calls.

One more and Yuta will give up, because it’s already hopeless of him. He should’ve just stuck with staying mad at TaeYong. TaeYong is probably wiped out of all possible feelings, and it’s not surprising he’s ignoring Yuta.

Yuta presses call one more time. Just one more time and then he’ll spend Christmas night alone, in a crowded cafe with his friends long gone for their respective homes and with no family to be warm and welcoming to him.

 

 

 

Without checking his phone, TaeYong grabs the keys to his car and roams the city before entering the coffee hub. The city has darkened; everything is so Christmas he’s nauseated at the smell of cakes.

TaeYong finds Yuta in a heartbeat, he’s always loved how he smells like coffee, and of all the nights it’s Christmas, the streets are blinking up brighter, a corrective to the new moon. TaeYong feels as if it was the beating of his heart that led him to the old café right beside the turning.

He can see Yuta through the glass wall facing the street even though Yuta is busy reading some book on his phone and after a second Yuta notices a strange man staring at him from the glass and he almost scares the shit out of himself. _What the fuck is TaeYong doing here?_ TaeYong grins at him and it makes Yuta blush even though he’s baffled.

Before TaeYong gets more embarrassing, Yuta hides in the queue before the counter he hopes to stay hidden there but then TaeYong gets into the old fashioned, low ceiling cafe. He breaks into the line right before Yuta’s going to place his order.

“I'd like to pay for this gentleman here,” TaeYong says and the old lady is already smitten much to Yuta’s astonishment.

“Fuck TaeYong you can't just—you don't even know what I'm ordering!”

“Actually I do. You always get the same thing.”

Yuta stares at him like he’s a mutant.

“You're welcome,” TaeYong says smugly.

 

 

 

 _What does he want from me?_   Yuta thinks as TaeYong waits in line for them. Occasionally, he glances at Yuta who’s sitting on one of the tables far from the glass wall he’s not ready for a second person scaring him to cardiac arrest. Yuta waits as TaeYong brings their drinks and takes a seat opposite him, smiling and his eyes requesting him to take the coffee from the tray.

“Stop staring at me like I’m the map to Atlantis,” Yuta growls but TaeYong steels his look, suddenly his face looks so high definition that Yuta’s heart is missing beats.

"And thanks for the coffee, which I obviously didn't ask for,” he says, being mean is one way of ignoring _the way_ TaeYong is looking at him.

“I already said you're welcome,” TaeYong reminds and swallows once Yuta presses the rim of the cup to his lips. “I-I wanted to know if you could-”

“Blend your balls for destroying my peace?” Yuta assumes with an evil smile but TaeYong isn’t paying heed.

“If you could stop being mad at me for a day—can you do that?” TaeYong says so earnestly that Yuta gets half convinced into saying yes albeit still mad _._ TaeYong takes a sip from Yuta’s coffee cup (he always used to do that and Yuta realises how much he missed the do-not-touch-my-coffee agreement). “We were writing Christmas wishes and then I realised that what I really wanted was _one day_ with you, if that’s the least I can hope for. _One day_ when you’re not mad at me.”

TaeYong expects Yuta to slap him once he sees him pulling his sleeve up. Contrarily, Yuta looks at his watch contemplatively. “Offer expires the moment the clock strikes twelve,” Yuta tells him.

TaeYong’s eyes widen, “Really? Two hours? You hate me that much?”

“It's actually one hour and 36 minutes. And yes I do. Starting now I'm not mad at you, but I will be, at and after 12 o clock. And for eternity thereafter,” Yuta finishes and TaeYong had wanted a bit more time. One hour and 36 minutes wasn’t enough to fix their relationship.

“Okay then,” TaeYong agrees, grabbing Yuta’s hand gently and walking him to his car. Yuta follows, heart in his throat.

 _I_ _’ll make the most of it._

 

 

 

Only the worst tourist guide would think walking on the sixteenth Grey’s street on one of the coldest nights of the year was a good idea.

To Yuta, TaeYong is that worst tourist guide. After a forty five minute drive in which the music kept on being switched from Guns N Roses to One OK Rock, TaeYong’s got Yuta to the pavement, and Yuta collapses on the bench there only to spring up instantly. “Yikes!”

TaeYong laughs another thing about it that Yuta had missed so much. “Ice hit your butt didn’t it?” he asks, still laughing.

“It’s fucking sub zero!” Yuta says, kicking the bench as punishment and then feeling a lot better about himself.

TaeYong sits down on the bench, shivering as the cold spreads through the underside of his thighs. “You can sit on my lap,” he offers and given all the fission of emotions that’s going on in Yuta’s head, he flatly rejects, “No thank you.”

TaeYong pouts. _I hate your lips,_ Yuta thinks. _I so fucking hate your lips._

“So you brought me here to freeze me to death?” Yuta asks but TaeYong bites his lips and pats the spot beside him, “I’ll tell you if you sat down.”

“Fine, it’s weird y’know? I don’t understand why you’d spend Christmas with me. I’m no one to you.” The way Yuta says it, it’s not expressing sadness, revolt; he says it as if he’s stating a fact.

“I’m not gonna lie Yuta but...” TaeYong says, looking down, “I tried forgetting you but I could not forget that I needed you.”

And Yuta’s heart skips for him, nothing new but it’s a beautiful feeling still, seeing TaeYong with him, getting to talk, to share to open up.

He feels like a sixteen year old kid again, gazing up at the stars, cuddled up against TaeYong.

And to think that he was willing to risk this feeling, that he _had risked_ and let TaeYong go, leading to every second of his absence feeling like mortal torture, Yuta can’t trust himself to think he could live with himself.

Yuta gets up from the bench, he walks towards the river, its blackness shining, and there are sounds of carols in the distance. He turns back to look TaeYong in the eye, “Do you hate me?”

TaeYong makes a confused hand gesture. Yuta shakes his head repeating, “For everything that has happened to us. Do you hate me?”

“No,” TaeYong says proceeding to get up and pull Yuta towards him. _I never stopped loving you._

It’s the first time he's ever held him so intimately, nothing could ever come close to this. TaeYong shuts his eyes tight and inhales the chilly air his arms moving over Yuta's back, grasping tight. Yuta wonders if he knows he's melting at each little touch, uneasy with the sudden warmth TaeYong wrapped around him is bringing him.

They hug for a long time; Yuta’s convinced he’s never going to get another hug so he holds on tight. They don't say anything, Yuta doesn't want to say anything and TaeYong has the weight of apologies on his tongue but he doesn’t know how to tell them. He knows the time is ticking it's almost going to be—

TaeYong's nose accidentally brushes Yuta's cheek and Yuta reflexively pushes him away with added strength and stares.

Yuta looks out of breath. His is face rendered pale by the cold and it just darkens his lips, making them more prominent and desirable to TaeYong.

_Damn._

"Please don't yell ‘sexual harassment’", TaeYong pleads because Yuta is fuming, mouth open and breathing hard.

"You...you dared to-to—"

"Yeah I dared to! I'm sorry! I don't know how to say this at all!" TaeYong exclaims, flailing his arms. “I’m sorry. For everythi—”

_"Sorry doesn't fix anything!"_

But then the church bells ring loud and clear, indicating them it’s twelve o’ clock. A wave of disappointment runs over TaeYong, he looks down and then to the boy he loves.

The bells snap them out of how angry they were and in the silence of a few moments, Yuta doesn't know what to do as TaeYong takes steps back, his eyes fixed on his own and he stops just to say dejectedly, “It’s twelve. You can go back to hating me.”

Truth is, Yuta doesn’t , he can’t. He can never hate him. TaeYong is the one ray of hope that came to chase his shadows away, TaeYong supporting him is the reason behind why he’s still playing soccer, because TaeYong was the first person who believed he could be the best at it. And Yuta knows TaeYong is the only one whose hand he wants to hold.

If he walks away now, what is left of Yuta? But Yuta’s eyes don’t lie, TaeYong is walking away and Yuta is reluctant to make him stay but he doesn’t have the words to make him stay. _No_ _—Please don_ _’t...not again_ _—_

“I’m in love with you,” Yuta says, his lips shaking in the cold.

Yuta may not be looking, but TaeYong’s features soften, it’s as if he’s melting. He appears in front of him, carefully taking off Yuta’s thin glasses and Yuta shuts his teary eyes, clutches onto him and is whispering, “Don’t go.” TaeYong holds Yuta’s hand in his free one, is pinning him against the tree and Yuta feels he's imagining the cold softness alighting on his head.

TaeYong believes it's a symbol from heaven once it begins to snow.

So he leans down to smash their lips together in a simple yet magical kiss. And TaeYong will always remember this, because he has never been more in love with anyone other than Yuta. Never was, never will be.

 

 

 

 

“You were right,” Taeil admits, walking into the headmaster’s office to hand him his bagels and biscuit.

Headmaster Byun jumps on the food and in between gorging on the delicacies; he pauses to ask, “What was I right about?”

“Love stories aren’t fickle, I’ve realised,” Taeil says and the headmaster smiles knowingly.

“Gotten hitched I see,” Byun winks suggestively but then Taeil knows why he’s admitting this to his narcissistic employer, it’s because from the window he can see two idiots named Lee TaeYong and Nakamoto Yuta playing snowball fight in the morning and laughing like it’s the most fun they’ve had in centuries, falling over their feet buried in the snow.

Taeil moves toward the exit, smiling after he sees TaeYong pull Yuta in a kiss. He finally sees Yuta break into the best smile in ages and TaeYong looks utterly smitten.

“No...just happy for two kids,” he answers the headmaster and the door hinges shut.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I was listening to this song while planning this so that’s where the title comes from ~~just an excuse for my obvious lack of creativity~~


End file.
